DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. This is the story of the Site of Pecan Springs School, out in Travis County. Now, before we even get to the schoolhouse, we have to talk about what happened in this very community back in 1833 — because the ground this school was built on already had a story, a dramatic one, long before any children ever sat down at a desk.
This is the community where the scalping and dramatic rescue of Josiah Wilbarger occurred. Eighteen thirty-three. Let that settle for a moment.
The land had seen things. Real things. The kind of things that get passed down around fires.
And then, decades later, life moved on the way it tends to do in Texas — people came, the area developed, and by 1875 the community had grown enough that somebody decided it was time to build a schoolhouse right here at this site. The original structure was thirty by forty feet, set on four point six eight acres of land. Not a grand building by any measure, but it was theirs.
And the first man to stand at the front of that one-room school was a Mr. Goodnight. One room.
Eighty-five pupils. Let that number roll around in your head for a second — eighty-five kids, one teacher, one room. Mr.
Goodnight had his hands full, and then some. As time went on, the school came under the county system and was designated District Number Sixty-One. Its southern boundary was the Colorado River itself.
By 1943, the school had grown to six teachers — still the same community, but a different kind of place than the one Mr. Goodnight faced alone. Then came the changes that come for everything eventually.
The school was annexed to Austin in 1951, and by 1956, it was closed. The land that had witnessed a scalping, a rescue, a one-room schoolhouse bursting with eighty-five students, and decades of district life — quiet now. That's how a place carries its history, layer by layer, right down into the soil.
What the marker says
In community where scalping and dramatic rescue of Josiah Wilbarger occurred in 1833. By 1875 area had developed so much that a schoolhouse was built at this site. Original 30 x 40-foot structure was set on 4.68 acres of land. A Mr. Goodnight was the first teacher; he had 85 pupils in one-room school. Later, under county system, this became District Number 61. Its southern boundary was the Colorado River. By 1943 it had six teachers. It was annexed to Austin in 1951; closed in 1956. (1973)